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This study tour to Tanzania has been canceled.

This course will explore indigenous cultures and flora and fauna of northcentral Tanzania in context. We will begin our journey in the city of Arusha and its surroundings, and then move through some of Africa’s greatest national parks including Lake Manyara, Lake Natron, Ngorongoro Crater, Serengeti, and the foothills of Kilimanjaro. There, students can observe and learn about animals and vegetations found in Tanzania and the strategies used to protect and preserve them. As we move through this varying landscape of tropical rainforest and dry savanna, we will stop in villages where we will have direct interactions with individuals from the distinct cultures found in this region of the African continent including the Chaaga, Datoga, Hadzabe, Iraqw, and Maasai peoples. These indigenous groups will share their dances, songs, arts, and other cultural traditions with us. We will travel through the Great Rift Valley to one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world — the Olduvai Gorge, where Louise and Mary Leaky made their groundbreaking discoveries of the earliest hominids and transformed our understanding of human evolution.

The course will investigate the role of colonialism in Tanzania’s history and explore ways in which postcolonial political and social structures, and the HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 epidemics complicate the art, music, and cultural identities of citizens of Tanzania. We will also explore gender roles in Tanzania in general, as well as within the distinct cultures with which we interact. In specific, we will visit a Maasai boma near the Tanzanian border with Kenya that is exclusively a place for women and girls.

This safari experience is designed for the adventurous student: one who enjoys pitching in to help, conversing with nature, and does not mind the challenges one may encounter when traveling in remote regions of a developing country.

This short-term study abroad course is limited to 14 participants and is only available for students in the Honors Program. It fulfills the ITL, CL or SI requirements.